GEN News Highlights

Making Vaccines from Parts

(Page
1
of
1)

Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics’ Philip Dormitzer, Ph.D., and his colleagues today report in Science Translational Medicine that they have successfully started and completed a synthetic flu vaccine virus in just one week.

This achievement emanated from what Dormitzer et al., called “lessons learned” from previous inadequate and less-than timely vaccine manufacture and delivery responses during past influenza pandemics—most notably, they said, the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, during which substantial vaccine quantities were available only after the second pandemic wave had peaked.

Based on these events, the authors explained, and the U.S. government’s interest in improving the influenza vaccine manufacturing enterprise, NV&D, the J. Craig Venter Institute, Synthetic Genomics Vaccines, and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, initiated a collaboration to develop a rapid process for synthetic vaccine generation. The Science Translational Medicine report summarizes the results of that effort.

The scientists set out to address three major technical barriers to more rapid and reliable pandemic responses: the speed of synthesizing DNA cassettes to drive production of influenza RNA genome segments, the accuracy of rapid gene synthesis, and the yield of HA from vaccine viruses.

Having received parts of the genetic code of an unknown flu virus from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) via the internet, the team got to work. The genetic code turned out to be a strain of the avian influenza H7N9. The researchers used enzymes to assemble synthetic DNA into genes and then corrected errors in the resulting gene sequences.

To produce the synthetic vaccine, the authors started with the gene sequences for hemagluglutinin and neuraminidase, two requisite antigens for the vaccine. A custom software program calculated the sequences of needed oligonucleotides to build the gene sequences. From there, the genes were built enzymatically in cell-free reactions that included a critical error correction step. The investigators then transfected the synthetic genes into Madin-Darby canine kidney cells, along with an assortment of improved flu backbones that coded for the other necessary viral genes, allowing them to select the combination that yielded the most vaccine antigen.

Dormitzer and colleagues sent the resulting vaccine virus to the CDC, which confirmed that key parts of the needed for an effective immune response matched the disease-causing virus.

The vaccine virus also triggered the correct immune response in ferrets, the primary mammalian model for human influenza.

Using this synthetic technology, a lab near the site of an outbreak could obtain genetic information about a new virus by sequencing, and then post the information to the internet. A vaccine manufacturer could then download the genetic code of the key parts of a virus and use that information to create a tailor-made vaccine.

The investigators showed that the new procedure could potentially save weeks of development and manufacturing time needed in response to flu pandemics.

Although synthetic vaccine technology has shown promise in the lab, further work is needed to prove effectiveness in manufacturing and field implementation before the technique can be routinely used.

The study, “Synthetic generation of influenza vaccine viruses for rapid response to pandemic,” appeared May 15 in Science Translational Medicine.

Readers' Comments

Posted 06/15/2013 by Joanne Soh

Is the production cost of this synthetic flu vaccine virus high? and will there be any issues on the availability? also will the synthetic vaccine provide a long term immunity? how much of this synthetic vaccine need to be taken to be effective?

Add a comment

You must be signed in to perform this action.
Click here to Login or Register for free.
You will be taken back to your selected item after Login/Registration.

Jobs

GEN Jobs powered by HireLifeScience.com connects you directly to employers in pharma, biotech, and the life sciences. View 40 to 50 fresh job postings daily or search for employment opportunities including those in R&D, clinical research, QA/QC, biomanufacturing, and regulatory affairs.

GEN Poll

Secure Science

Should bans on science education, of the sort imposed on Iranians hoping to study physics and engineering in the United States, encompass other nationals and other fields of study, including biotechnology?

No. Such bans could easily get out of control, preventing the sharing and growth of knowledge.

Yes. The potential, for example, for the development of bioweapons if biotech information gets into the wrong hands must be minimized.

No. Such bans could easily get out of control, preventing the sharing and growth of knowledge.

57.1%

Yes. The potential, for example, for the development of bioweapons if biotech information gets into the wrong hands must be minimized.

If you have any questions about your subscription, click
hereto email us or call at (914) 740-2189.

You may also be interested in subscribing to the GEN magazine, an indispensable
resource for everyone involved in the business of translating discoveries at the
bench into solutions that fight disease and improve health, agriculture, and the
environment. Subscribe
today to see why over 60,000 biotech professionals read GEN to
keep current in the areas of genomics, proteomics, drug discovery, biomarker discovery,
bioprocessing, molecular diagnostics, collaborations, biotech business trends, and
more.